A Denver company owned by a devout Catholic family got at least a temporary reprieve last week from the contraception mandate in federal health reform law that they said infringed on their religious liberties.

In granting the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge John Kane determined that Hercules Industries, a manufacturer of heating and air-conditioning equipment, established that they would suffer “irreparable harm” were they forced to comply with the rule, which took effect Wednesday.

We’ll share our view on the ruling in Sunday’s Perspective section. Before then, here’s a look at what’s being said elsewhere:
In an editorial, the L.A. Times said that because religious colleges and hospitals are at least part of a church’s religious mission, the discussion as to whether they should provide no co-pay access to contraception for employees makes sense. “The same cannot be said for a company that sells heating, ventilation and air conditioning services. … Reasonably interpreted, neither the Religious Freedom Restoration Act nor the 1st Amendment provides an escape hatch for profit-making businesses from the (Affordable Care Act), any more than it exempts them from civil rights laws.”

But on the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, Sarah Kliff cautioned that it’s too soon for the contraceptive mandate’s opponents to declare victory. “The injunction is specific to that one company, and it holds only until the judge can reach a verdict on the case’s merits. Still, it could mark the start of a long period of litigation involving one of the health-care law’s most polarizing provisions.”

A blog post for The Hill, quoted a member of the ACLU decrying the injunction is discrimination: “This is not religious freedom, this is discrimination,” Sarah Lipton-Lubet, policy counsel for the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, was quoted as saying. “Real religious liberty gives everyone the right to make their own decisions about their own health, including whether and when to use birth control. It doesn’t give anyone the right to impose their beliefs on others.”

Writing for the National Review online, Carrie Severeno pointed out that the decision ignored an important issue as far as religious-freedom, that being … “the government’s assertion that, ‘by definition, a secular employer does not engage in any exercise of religion.’ This is groundbreaking: If the government prevails, then the (family who run Hercules Inc.) no longer have enforceable religious rights once they enter the commercial sphere.”

The Catholic News Agency quoted Mike Norton, an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, the group that brough the suit, as calling the injunction “very important.”He said it will determine “whether family-owned small businesses have the freedom to practice their faith as they wish in the public square and in the public arena, or whether they will be obliged to offer health insurance coverage that violates that faith.”

The New American’s, Dave Bohon is among those who pointed out the ruling’s potential to undo the mandate“The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing several organizations in lawsuits against the mandate, said Kane’s ruling could well begin the push for the eventual dismantling of the Obama mandate. ‘Judge Kane’s ruling today in favor of a religious for-profit plaintiff challenging the coercive HHS mandate got the law right,’ said Hannah Smith, senior counsel with the Becket Fund. ‘Religious liberty rights don’t stop at the store-front door. This decision portends the demise of the current Administration’s attempts to drive religious activity from the public square and confine it within the four walls of a church.”

Writing for the Heritage Foundation’s Foundry blog, Jennifer Marshall and Dominique Ludvigson noted that the case is a signal of the Obama administration’s view of religious freedom. “In its court filings and arguments in the case, the Obama Administration has consistently pressed a view of religious liberty so narrow as to render this fundamental freedom meaningless. It has attempted to read into constitutional and statutory protections for religious freedom a condition that would suspend its application in the business context, forcing business owners to abandon their religious and moral convictions as a condition of participating in commerce.”

Writing for The Atlantic, Wendy Kaminer said, based on the court’s ruling, it appears that the government is in a no-win position. “The injunction in Newland was not based on First Amendment claims but on a federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This act requires the government to demonstrate a compelling interest in regulations that substantially burden religion. In Newland, the district court found the government’s compelling interest in uniform application of a public health measure was ‘undermined’ by ‘numerous exemptions to the preventive care mandate,’ including contraception care exemptions offered to religious institutions. In other words, if the law were less accommodating, the government would have a stronger interest in uniformly enforcing it. But if the law were less accommodating to religion, it would have been quite vulnerable to First Amendment challenges. Pursuant to the Court’s reasoning in Newland, the government can’t win.”

Writing for Commentary, Jonathan S. Tobin said the case illustrates the “intrusive nature” of the Affordable Care Act. “Allowing the Newlands and any other business owner who thinks they have a right to abide by their own consciences does no injury to women or to anyone. The right to contraception or even abortion is not being abridged if they are allowed to choose an insurance plan that does not include them. But if they are compelled by government fiat to trample on their beliefs, their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion will be trampled.”

And this may just be another issue of corporate personhood, Ian Millhiser writes for Think Progress. “There is a fairly strong legal argument that a twenty year old federal law would allow a religious organization, such as the Catholic church, to ignore a federal birth control law — although one of the most Republican courts in the country rejected a very similar argument just eight years ago. Judge Kane’s case, however, does not involve a church. It doesn’t even involve a Catholic-affiliated charity. This case involves whether a for-profit heating and air conditioning company can claim its religious beliefs are being tread upon. It’s bizarre enough that five Supreme Court justices cannot tell the difference between a corporation and a person. For the plaintiffs to win this case, a judge will have to hold that a corporation can be Catholic.”

Totalitarian liberals pretend to help people until they have the power to imprison dissidents and impoverish everyone. See Obama and Mussolini.

Conservatives believe that everyone should buy their own oil changes, routine visits to doctors, aspirins and $9-a-month (at Walmart) contraceptives. The only people who should get government subsidies or tax breaks of any kind are the hard-core unemployable, chronically disabled and mentally ill. And even the most destitute should decide whether they spend on their welfare on contraceptives, mortgages, car loans, rent, visits to their doctors, potato chips or contraceptives.

This has nothing to do with religion, which is just a false talking point for Republicans who are so Big Government that they don’t get the Small Government issue that we’re discussing.

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

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